← Prophecy Watchers
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- [00:00]
A
If you go with an open heart, willing to let the plain statements of the early church fathers be taken at face value and you actually investigate, look at things in context, you're going to see that the Didache, which was probably written either in the end of the first century or the very beginning of the second, was pre Trib. And the Didache was in the era of when either very at the tail end of John the apostle John's life or very shortly after his death, it was pre Trib. You come to Irenaeus who claims that
- [00:40]
B
he was 200 A.D. just so people, he's around 200 A.D. 185. Right?
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A
Yeah. Well, and Irenaeus says that he got his teaching on eschatology from aged men who had sat at the feet of the apostles themselves, just one step removed from the apostles.
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B
Basically Papias and Polycarp.
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A
That's who he learned it from. Yes, and Papias and Polycarp learned it from John and Clement. And Clement was in there and they learned it from John and Peter and James. So we have a very close proximity here to the early apostles themselves. And so this early church father Irenaeus very clearly taught in four different passages a pre tribulation rapture.
- [01:32]
B
See, so this is important too because give the title of your book because again for people that say, well I've never heard that before, all this is 100% Darby. And you're going to go no. And so talk about your book.
- [01:47]
A
Okay, so the book is called Recent pre trib Findings in the Early Church Fathers. It's available on Amazon and at Prophecy Watchers. Yeah, at Prophecy Watchers and a few other places. And what the book does is it brings out the pre Trib argument from the Didache, from Irenaeus, from Ephraim the Syrian and from Eusebius. Now there were already, most dispensationalists were already aware that there was a pre trib argument in Didache and in Irenaeus. But what I did is I clarified and expanded on the argument for a pre trib rapture and gave people some information that they were not aware of,
- [02:28]
B
especially the use of the language. Like you said with Irenaeus using Ekklesia and others contextually.
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A
And then when it comes to Eusebius, I brought out nine pre tribulation rapture passages that nobody was aware of existed. As far as I know, nobody even knew or guessed that Eusebius was pre trib until I brought this information out. It's not found in his works that are translated, but he's got some strong evidence for a pre Trib rapture in the works that have not been translated into English. And then when it comes to Ephraim the Syrian who's in the 4th century, I bring out 10 crystal clear pre Trib rapture passages that plainly state that the church is going to be kept from the Great Tribulation. The language is so clear that you basically have to poke your eyes out to deny it.
- [03:21]
B
So in addition, let's just say that some people again playing Devil's Attica, they say, well that's a reference not to all seven years, it's only a reference to the Great Tribulation the last three and a half years. Would that really even matter too much? Because it still shows it annihilates a post Trib rapture.
- [03:46]
A
Yeah, and it does it basically. It would essentially. Because if you're going to go down that road, a lot of some of the early fathers didn't hold a seven year tribulation at the end of the age. They held a three and a half year tribulation at the end of the age. So it's still a literal pre Trib rapture.
- [04:04]
B
Yeah. So that's the important thing here is that when you look at the hatred going out there, what we see often, sadly is that most people that argue against dispensationalism don't fully understand it. They don't understand the distinctions, they don't understand the limits. And we've just spent the last 40 minutes looking at almost all of the major distinctions individually, isolating them out, showing that they existed prior to Darby.
- [04:37]
A
I would like to add one closing thought here and that's that, you know, people get frustrated. Why is God going to go back to the Jews? They rejected the Lord and he's moved on. This is exactly the point. God is the God of second chances. He set Israel aside temporarily, not permanently. He's the God of second chances. He's going to give Israel a second chance to receive their Messiah, to receive the new covenant nationally.
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B
Nationally. Yes, yes.
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A
And so this is a tremendous blessing. If God can give recalcitrant, impenitent, backsliding, apostate Israel a second chance, then we can rest assured he's going to give any human being on planet earth a second chance.
- [05:24]
B
I mean this is where you go to Romans 11 and no doubt Paul talks about the doctrine of elections. Not even he's talking variety of things, but specifically he says, well, that the doctrine of election would stand. He said, but you know what? Hey, the elect received it. So in this sense, Paul was part of the elect.
- [05:41]
A
That's right.
- [05:42]
B
He received it and he said. And the rest were blinded. Okay. But Paul goes on to say, I think there's something to say that God is not going to allow the Jews to, the national Jews to end on such a sour note. That's right, because it's kind of an affront against them, even though they're at fault. He's not at fault, but he's like, no, I'm going to succeed and I'm going to win. I'm going to vindicate my name. And this is why in Romans 11, Paul makes the comment, as we know, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. And he says, all Israel will be saved. And he'll remove ungodliness from ungodliness from Jacob. Right. Romans 11:26. But in addition, he says, hey, have they stumbled so much that they have fallen out? And he says, no. He goes, look, if through their falling, their stumble, all this amazing glory has come to the Gentiles, how much more their restoration? And he says, that's going to be what we've seen in the gospel, going to the whole world, and we're being recipients of it based on their failure. The Jews tripping, they didn't fall completely off the stage, they tripped. And of course, some Jews got saved. Paul says their restoration, which could only be national.
- [06:55]
A
That's right.
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B
Because if there wasn't a future restoration nationally, you'd say, well, Paul got saved, big deal. Yep, it's a national restoration. And if that happens, he says, what are. That's going to be riches to the world.
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A
That's right.
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B
This comes back to riches. When? During the millennial period?
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A
That's right.
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B
Final thought.
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A
I like to say, if you thought Pentecost 1.0 was amazing, wait till you see Pentecost 2.0.